App Store Update: July 11, 2012

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Ladies and gentlemen, meet Gangster Granny.

By Lucas M. Thomas

Every day hundreds of new apps make their debut on the App Store, and hundreds more are updated or reduced in price. We have sifted through the noise and highlighted those select few that might be worth your attention.

Game Debuts

Gangster Granny – ($2.99)

Anytime anyone arms an octogenarian, it's time to take notice. Gangster Granny is a new action game where you help a little old lady break out of prison, murder anyone who gets in her way and ultimately rob a bank. That's not exactly how my own grandma rolls – it's got to be worth a look.

EMERGENCY – ($0.99)

Second up today is EMERGENCY, which puts you in the role of first responders swarming to the scenes of natural disasters and accidents to help stabilize the dangerous situations and protect innocent bystanders – so if you'd like, you can think about this game as depicting what happens in the aftermath of one of Gangster Granny's rampages.

Price Drops

Planet Wars – (Free)

Kicking off today's freebies is Planet Wars, a top-down extraterrestrial shooter with a hand-drawn visual style, 10 campaign missions and a survival mode.

Tiny Troopers – ($0.99)

Your other top-down shooting option on sale today is Chillingo's Tiny Troopers, though it hasn't dropped all the way down to the free level. A buck will let you own its toony carnage and 30 storyline missions.

Zarik HD – (Free)

Then, back on the free side, you've got the iPad version of Zarik, a mind-bending dice-based puzzler that has you attempting to roll each six-sided die onto a highlighted target space – but you can only roll each one the same number of times as the dots displayed on top of it, and traffic jams of other dice will get in your way.

DOFUS: Battles 2 – ($2.99)

And last to be featured today is not one, but two DOFUS: Battles games. DOFUS: Battles 2 is a "tower attack" design that's worth taking a look at today because its price has had two dollars knocked off of it, taking it down to $2.99 from its original five-buck asking price . . .

Updates

DOFUS: Battles – ($0.99)

. . . and the original DOFUS: Battles has also received a new update today. It's more traditional tower defense, with its Version 1.2.120613 update bringing 16 new monsters and eight new battles into the mix. (Though a battle against Gangster Granny is, sadly, not one of them.)

That's all for today! Remember to subscribe to the App Store Update via email for extra convenience:

Lucas M. Thomas is IGN Nintendo's longtime champion of downloadable titles across the Wii, DSi and 3DS. He's happy to now be helping Justin round up the best options for App Store shoppers. You can follow him on Twitter.